[Announce] Part III, Fr McCarthy on the Notre Dame affair

[Robert Waldrop]

NB; I deleted the pictures from the original email to reduce its size. RMW



DEAD RIGHT AND DEAD WRONG:Bishop John D'Arcy and Notre Dame

-Part Three-

Today is Good Friday, AD

Do you see the eyes of the Crucified looking at you with a searching gaze? They are asking you a question: Are you, in all seriousness, ready to enter once again into a covenant with the Crucified? What are you going to answer?

St. Teresia Benedicta a Cruce

(Edith Stein) 

oly Mother Church, that is, the institutional Constantinian Church, gave birth to the institution named the University of Notre Dame. It was in this mother's image that this Constantinian Catholic university was formed. She was Notre Dame's mother, and Notre Dame's model of what it means to be a Christian and how to live the life for which Jesus gave His disciples the gift of faith. Notre Dame learned well the lessons her mother taught her, and she has achieved full stature as a Constantinian Catholic university. She has grown into that wisdom and age, that wealth and power which have been the glory, hallmark, and modus operandi of the Constantinian Church Militant for over a millennia-and-a-half.

Now the child, taking all she has learned at her Constantinian mother's knee, has surpassed her mother in the logical application of the mother's principles and value system. What is a mother to do in such a case? What is a child to do when her mother and model has become an adversary and obstacle to her Constantinian growth and advancement? Here are a few lines from a letter written in response to the Notre Dame-Obama-D'Arcy entanglement. They shed light on the "wickedness and snares" of the moral quagmire in which this mother and child have enmeshed themselves by their history of Constantinian-based, instead of Christ-based, choices:

[I]f you [Notre Dame] have "God, Country, Notre Dame" chiseled above the door to your basilica, and if you have spent the last 100 years training the nation's soldiers for war, you ought not be surprised when the commander-in-chief comes around every now and then to check things out.

Neither should the Bishop of South Bend-Fort Wayne be surprised when he and his predecessors and the Catholic Bishops of the U.S. and the world have validated and supported the Constantinian inscription "God, Country, Notre Dame" in one form or another, as well as, the utterly fraudulent "IN GLORY EVERLASTING" which accompanies it, for 1700 years. If so many other presidents, politicians and military men, who have clearly acted in defiance of our (Catholic) fundamental moral principles by participating in the unjust destruction of human life, have been given awards, honors or platforms by Notre Dame and hundreds of other Catholic institutions in the U.S., within hundreds of other dioceses in the U.S., then why not this commander-in-chief who, no different from all his predecessors, has unjustly killed and is willing to unjustly kill human beings in utero and extra-utero? 

Children are mimetic. They are genetically endowed with the capacity to imitate from birth the words, deeds, thoughts, values, attitudes, beliefs, gestures, habits, tastes, truths, etc., of the people in the generations ahead of them with whom they come into contact. The first of these people are their parents. A person's original language is called his or her "mother tongue" because under normal conditions the mother is the person most in the presence of the baby and speaking to him or her. It is in the first instance the mother's language, language patterns and quirks that the child learns to imitate. A child born to Chinese-speaking parents in China is not speaking Arabic at four years old. So, as long as the Constantinian mother, that is, the institutional Church, teaches, practices, and models Constantinian Christianity as she has been doing, Constantinian mimesis is inevitable. There will be no humanly realistic possibility of the vast majority of her children being other than she because mimesis and metanoia-change of mind or heart-are ecclesially and practically intertwined. The fruit does not fall far from the tree as the old maxim reminds us. A good tree produces good fruit; a bad tree produces bad fruit, as Jesus, the Word (Logos) of God incarnate, tells us.

Short of a Church-wide hierarchical metanoia, which would obviously require the grace of an Easter-Sunday-level miracle, the only permanent way I see to get out this and similar sticky situations, once and for all, is for all parties involved-Notre Dame, Bishop D'Arcy, the USCCB, the Vatican-to go unreservedly, unabashedly and unapologetically completely "Orwellian," by irrevocably committing themselves to doublethink* as theologically and morally acceptable for the Church, for the Christian and for the state. With doublethink established as an acceptable and accepted Christian principle by mother and child, no separation between Constantinian mother and Constantinian child need ever occur. Hence, no public capitulation over one's particular form of Constantinian Christianity, with all the loss of cultural status which that would entail, need ever take place again.


*doublethink: A word coined by George Orwell in his novel, 1984, which describes a technologically advanced dystopia. It communicates the notion of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously and accepting both of them as the truth. It is the telling of deliberate lies while genuinely believing in their truth. It includes forgetting any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, drawing it back from oblivion for only as long as it is needed. Doublethink creates non-existent associations between contradictory meanings, especially of fundamentally important words, such as good and evil; right and wrong; truth and falsehood; justice and injustice. It renders the principle of non-contradiction inoperative whenever that principle does not advance the speaker's, or his or her party's ends. This itself is an act of doublethink. 

Going "full Monty," high-tech Orwellian should not be too difficult for the Constantinian Church to do. First, because ever-increasing and sophisticated violence and ever-increasing and sophisticated doublethink are the fundamental directions in which Western civilization is moving. Therefore, there would be great cultural and social-psychological support for such a move on the part of the Church. Second, because, historically, the Constantinian mother Church and her progeny, for over 1000 years before George Orwell and 1984, have been masters at creating, nurturing, and sustaining doublethink Orwellianisms to serve their interests. One prominent example: Justitia et Misericordia, "Justice and Mercy," the motto of one of the most unjust and merciless of the offspring of Constantinian Church history, The Holy Office of the Inquisition. So, once the Constantinian mother and the Constantinian children, whom she has spawned agree to accept and propagate, with full Constantinian-canonical authority and full Constantinian-scholarly authority, the putative theological and moral soundness of doublespeak, then such theological and moral notions as "fear is freedom," "hate is love," "ignorance is knowledge," "coercion is conversion," "violence is nonviolence," "the works of war are the works of mercy," etc., will be legitimate to employ for interpreting, understanding and following Jesus. The final bell would then be rung on the Notre Dame-Bishop D'Arcy (USCCB) PR/media, shadowboxing event and all similar future events. Never again would there have to be a Pope Gregory VII-Henry IV PR debacle in the Church, as happened at Fort Canossa, or a Notre Dame-Bishop D'Arcy run-in over whose form of Constantinian Christianity is the Way of Jesus. Nurturing in theological and moral doublethink mimesis will guarantee this.

In the light of such a total mutual commitment, as opposed to the present partial and selective commitment, to Constantinianism and Orwellianism, any form of violence, enmity, mercilessness, etc., could be justified as being in conformity with the will of God as revealed by Jesus. The institutional Constantinian-Orwellian Church and all its subsidiaries would then have no difficulty creating and nurturing mind-sets and verbiage, theological interpretations of the Gospel and/or of Natural Law moral principles along whatever lines self-interests and survival demand. Yesterday's intrinsic evil could become today's virtue. Put up your sword, for he or she who lives by the sword will perish by the sword, could, without fear of causing in-house opposition, mean the same as, If you want peace, prepare for war. Or, Put up your sword could easily be understood as, Take out your sword, or Get yourself an army. Love your enemies could equate to, Starve and slaughter your enemies. And, of course, abortion via an artillery shell or a machine gun barrage, or from the percussion from exploding munitions, or from war induced stress, or from depleted uranium (DU) or from the lack of food, clean water or sanitation due the destruction of a nation's infra-structure in an unjust war would not be the intrinsically grave evil of the unjust killing of an innocent human being in the womb; it would be merely "collateral damage." [See the essay Abortion and War at www.centerforchristiannonviolence.org]

For a Church that accepts, traditionally embraces, doctrinally defends, and/or everyday practices Constantinian-Orwellian doublethink, all things are morally possible. This is especially true when we recognize that given the right set of circumstances, silence can be doublethink-a most powerful and persuasive form of doublethink and doublespeak. 

This, silence as doublethink, has in fact been the stance of choice for the U.S. Catholic Bishops and practically all other U.S. Constantinian-Orwellian Bishops since the patently unjust invasion of Iraq by the U.S. As Aldous Huxley phrased it: "The greatest triumphs of propaganda have been accomplished, not by doing something, but by refraining from doing.Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth." Indeed, such doublethink silence regarding the truth can even be organized and enforced. The U.S. Catholic Bishops and other Constantinian-Orwellian Bishops and institutions have marvelously demonstrated this in relation to the mass murder being prosecuted for the last six years in Iraq.

However, doublethink, as a modus operandi of thought intrinsically knows no illogical limits. So, if doublethink is good for my goose, doublethink must be good for your gander. There is no basis other than doublethink itself for denying access to it as a way of conducting life and justifying life's conduct. If you can have your Christian doublethink life, theology and morality, then I can have with equal validity my Christian doublethink life, theology and morality. 

I would submit for those who would be so interested that Pope Benedict's much publicized University of Regensburg Lecture was from a Gospel perspective logically and theologically correct. However, it became logically and theologically and historically doublethink by silence, when it pointed its pontifical finger only at Islam for not acting according to reason. Benedict lectured Islam in these words: 

Modifying the first verse of the Book of Genesis, John began the prologue of his Gospel with the words: In the beginning was the logos.and the logos is God. God acts with logos. Logos means both reason and word-a reason which is creative and capable of self-communication, precisely as reason. Not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature.Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. God is not pleased by blood, and not acting reasonably ("syn logo") is contrary to God's nature.

All this and more along these lines is directed at Islam, not a word in the lecture about the colossal and far-reaching betrayal of reason, the Logos (Word), by his own Constantinian-Orwellian Church's use of doublethink in interpreting and applying the teaching of the Logos incarnate, the Nonviolent Jesus of Nazareth. 

This doublethink by silence left the impression that, unlike Islam, the way Catholics and Christians have been going about their religious business is reasonably (syn logo), and not contrary to God's nature. But, nothing is further from acting reasonably, from acting syn logo, from acting consistent with the nature of God and the nature of the soul, than acting and speaking out of doublethink. 

Acceptance and submission to doublethink is no more, or less, entrance into a universe of moral chaos than is acceptance of an understanding of God as One who can say "X" is evil one day and forbid it, and the next day say "X" is good and command submission to it. 

The only solution to the Notre Dame-Bishop D'Arcy symbolic, but real conflict is the previously noted Church-wide hierarchical metanoia: A Christ-like metanoia, by Notre Dame, the Bishop of South Bend, the USCCB and the Vatican, which rejects publicly and permanently the Constantinian-Orwellian doublespeak alterations of the teachings of Jesus that have been introduced into the Church is the only solution Such a metanoia would return the Church, including the USCCB and Notre Dame, to teaching and acting in conformity with a universal non-doublethink interpretation of what Jesus taught by word and deed concerning violence and nonviolence, enmity and love, fear and freedom, domination and service, mercilessness and mercy, coercion and conversion, the kingdoms of the world and the Kingdom of God, that is, what He taught by word and deed as the Way and Will of the Father of all.

If, however, this clash of U.S. Catholic Constantinian-Orwellian titans is resolved by a deeper dive by all parties into Constantinian-Orwellian Christianity, rather than by the metanoia Jesus calls for from both mother and children then we can expect at least a thousand more years of Ronald Reagans and Barack Obamas, et al, being given awards, honors or platforms by Constantinian-Orwellian ecclesiastics and Constantinian-Orwellian institutions. For it is just a fact of human life in a post-Original Sin cosmos that, until that metanoia commanded by Jesus is committed to by Christian Churches and by Christians, there will never be-because of the process of mimesis assured by the teaching, modeling, and nurturing practices of Constantinian-Orwellian Christianity-a shortage of Christians who lust for power, for control over wealth, for prestige, and who have no Christian moral problem with acquiring, protecting, and sustaining their hearts' desires by whatever forms of violence, cooperation with violence, and honoring of violence they deem necessary for the task. 

Constantinian-Orwellian mimesis is the nemesis of the institutional Church. Without the ecclesial-hierarchical metanoia that re-turns both mother and child to the mind of the Nonviolent Jesus of the Gospel and to a non-doublethink interpretation of His proclaimed Way of Nonviolent Love of friends and enemies, another thousand years of Constantinian-Orwellian mimesis will result in another thousand years of jovial birthday parties for popes given by the murdering masters of the world, and soirées hosted by military elites for Church elites. The Church will survive because Jesus Christ guarantees Her survival. But failing this metanoia in mimesis by the institutional Constantinian-Orwellian Church and its "servant-rulers," the "Fighting Irish" will continue killing on sea, air, and land, thanks to Notre Dame's three-"service," full-gush, money-spigot, ROTC programs. Georgetown, for The Greater Glory of God, will continue to rush with open arms and open wallet to embrace the next generation of Douglas Feiths. Boston College, another ad maiorem Dei gloriam Catholic institution of higher education, will continue to give awards, honors and platforms to the next ten decades of white-collar trucklers and apparatchiks in unjustified killing in the model of Condoleezza Rice.

In the face of such a Constantinian-Orwellian Christian future, which will be at least as murderous as the Churches' Constantinian-Orwellian past, what of Jesus? What becomes of the risen Jesus? Where in reality does He fit into future Constantinian-Orwellian Churches, Constantinian-Orwellian Christian universities, colleges, high schools and elementary schools, Constantine-Orwellian Christian families, Constantinian-Orwellian Christian minds and hearts? As their justification for doing the opposite of what He commanded them to do? As their pacifier for a conscience committed to doing what He would never do? 

Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?

I tell you in truth, whatever you did to the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did to me.

My Christian brothers and sisters, this is where Jesus in reality fits into all of this. Constantinian-Orwellian Churches, institutions, and Christians are Christ-killers, Christ-persecutors! You may believe it or not. Refute it, you cannot. Refrain doing it, you must. For as sure as the violent Saul was persecuting Jesus, Constantinian-Orwellian Christianity is crucifying and persecuting Him-EXCEPT IT IS DOING IT IN HIS NAME! This is the ultimate manifestation of the diabolicalness of doublethink: mocking the Nonviolent Logos (Word) of God incarnate by abandoning the logical principle of non-contradiction in interpreting His teachings-thereby being able to fool Christians into believing that they are serving Him by violently imposing suffering on Him by way of violently imposing suffering on those with whom He is one and whom He loves. 

Stop it, Notre Dame! Stop it, USCCB! Stop it, all you Churches-Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, and Evangelical! You have turned the Church, which is supposed to be an extension of the Nonviolent Jesus Christ in time and space, into a place of "holy" murder in reason's mask. Enough chaos has been brought into the Church and enough misery brought into the world, and enough healing and sanctification missed, by the employment of selective Christian moral doublethink. It is passed the time to cease and desist! You have had more than your 15 minutes of playing to the princes of this world and their kingdoms-at great expense to Jesus.


We began with a quotation from St. Edith Stein: Do you see the eyes of the Crucified looking at you with a searching gaze? They are asking you a question: Are you, in all seriousness, ready to enter once again into a covenant with the Crucified? What are you going to answer?


Is your answer going to be: I am not ready to enter into a covenant with the Crucified. I intend to stay in my covenants with the violent crucifiers, and hope I can deceive the Nonviolent Crucified One with doublethink lip service.


Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

FINAL: PART FOUR TO FOLLOW
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://shire.symonds.net/pipermail/announce/attachments/20090420/53a4262e/attachment-0001.htm